Carlton's Brock McLean and Richmond's Tyrone Vickery both still working hard

Daniel Cherny

Though born more than four years apart, a lifetime in AFL playing terms, they share a great many similarities. Both top ten draft picks, both now playing for once all-conquering Victorian clubs. Their respective teams have stumbled through the early part of season 2014 despite finals appearances last season, and on an individual note, both have spent time already this year languishing in the VFL.

Combining to make one particularly maligned pair, Brock McLean and Tyrone Vickery have both been steadfast in dealing with criticism, meeting it with the only remedy they know: hard work.

For Richmond's Vickery, such an approach seeks to dispel the noise of his detractors, some of whom have questioned his desire to succeed at the top level.

But the recalled forward is adamant the view is an uneducated one.

"It's such a hard job and players go through so much off the field and behind the scenes that if you didn't love it, you didn't want to do it, you just wouldn't," Vickery said on Saturday.

"I'm there working hard every day during pre-season, I'm sacrificing a lot like all players. I think it's just a really simplistic, ridiculous way to look at it, maybe from people who haven't played the game, but I couldn't disagree more."

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Strikingly similar are the words that flow from the mouth of veteran McLean, having himself returned to the battling Carlton line-up after a state league stint.

"There's 400 million footy shows and there's a lot of journalists or media people out there who are quick to dig the boot in to players," McLean said.

"It's always a bit rich coming from guys who have never played football or never kicked a football and they're telling you how to go about it."

"Regardless of whether I'm playing well or I'm not playing well, the one thing that never changes is how hard I work during the week and the effort I put into my football."

The former Demon scoffed at the suggestion that his non-appearance in the Blues' three-quarter time huddle in round two was any more than a misunderstanding about whether a subbed out player could return to the field, but he was not at all surprised that the seemingly trivial incident became such a major talking point.

In assessing their seasons to date, both McLean and Vickery highlighted the hit-and-miss nature of their football thus far in 2014.

"Probably like the team [I've been] a bit inconsistent," Vickery conceded.

"I've managed to kick goals in almost every match but as a forward you've got to do more than that nowadays."

McLean conveyed a similar tone - that of a player appearing to be a microcosm of his side.

"It's been a little bit sort of indifferent for me," he said.

"Early on my form wasn't great and rightly so, I got dropped; it was a good little challenge for me."

"It was maybe a challenge I needed to get me out of my rut and coming back, the best thing was being a part of that great win against West Coast, I think it was really good for the team's confidence, but having said that, the following week we dished up what we did against Collingwood and that probably just sums up where we're at at the moment."

Vickery and McLean came together on Saturday to spruik the benefits of study as representatives of the AFLPA, acting in association with La Trobe University.

Vickery is currently studying law part-time, although despite a week full of legal encroachment into the fundamentals of football, he remains unsure whether he wants to practise law once he completes his degree.

Having dabbled in personal training studies, business studies, project development studies, property development studies, and financial planning studies, McLean feels as though he's traversed more courses than Greg Norman.

But having at last settled into the world of stockbroking, he is enjoying his one-day-a-week internship with financial group Lincoln.